PvK Balance Mod Version 1.1 posted (for SE4 Gold Version 1.91 - Patch 4)

[PvK]

On this thread, I said I'd make a racial point balance mod for the basic (otherwise unmodded) game.

Post here if you have any strong opinions about what things should cost. I have a pretty good idea of what to do, but you probably have good ideas too, so if so, post away.

PvK

[ February 26, 2004, 06:08: Message edited by: PvK ]

[geoschmo]

You should definetly add SJ's maintenance modification.

Geoschmo

[Fyron]

Aggressiveness and Defensiveness need to be very expensive. Make the minimums of them be 90%. Religious races dont need to be able to lower Aggressiveness to 75% to get half the points back for taking Talismans. Remove Environmental Resistance by making min 100 and max 100. It is a pointless trait that only serves as a loophole to get free points.

[PvK]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
You should definetly add SJ's maintenance modification.

Geoschmo

I would, but this would require modding the vehicles.txt file, so that would be sort of beyond the scope of the mod, and it would lose compatibility with other mods that otherwise would be able to work with it.

PvK

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by PvK:

quote:

---

Originally posted by geoschmo:
You should definetly add SJ's maintenance modification.

Geoschmo

I would, but this would require modding the vehicles.txt file, so that would be sort of beyond the scope of the mod, and it would lose compatibility with other mods that otherwise would be able to work with it.

PvK

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Ok then, well make it real expensive then, and top it out at 10% period.

Geoschmo

[PvK]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Aggressiveness and Defensiveness need to be very expensive. Make the minimums of them be 90%. Religious races dont need to be able to lower Aggressiveness to 75% to get half the points back for taking Talismans. Remove Environmental Resistance by making min 100 and max 100. It is a pointless trait that only serves as a loophole to get free points.

There are two brackets for both reduction and improvement, and I'd rather not remove those options entirely, as again that would make the scope of the mod more than just a balance correction. What I will do though is make nearly-pointless sacrifices earn extremely few points.

Aggressiveness 75% is still a disadvantage for a Religious race, because not all their units will have talismans. Very low aggressiveness is a signifigant disadvantage even to races that plan to avoid using it, because cementing yourself into a strategy that avoids hitting with non-talisman direct-fire weapons, is limiting your flexibility.

Environmental resistance is greatly overvalued, but also is not without consequence - it cuts down planet reproduction significantly, which does have an effect even in the unmodded game. Also, it's more interesting if players have to pay at least a bit of attention to planet Conditions, so it should be worth at least a few points.

PvK

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by PvK:
Environmental resistance is greatly overvalued, but also is not without consequence - it cuts down planet reproduction significantly, which does have an effect even in the unmodded game. Also, it's more interesting if players have to pay at least a bit of attention to planet Conditions, so it should be worth at least a few points.

Fyron said tolerance is pointless, when he should have said it's redundant. The conditions of the planet have no effect. I thought they did too, but I was wrong. Tolerance is just another linear modification to reproduction rate. You lose one point of repro and about for every five points of tolerance. It may also affect happiness, but that appears to be linear as well. Conditions have no effect on this beyond the effect conditions already have on reproduction.

Geoschmo

[ December 22, 2002, 23:16: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Fyron]

I ran a test on Environmental Resistance. I set up 1 system with 16 planets, ranging from a conditions value of 0.0 to 1.5. I colonized all planets on the same turn. Here are the results:

Totally standard, average race:

All planets are Happy

0.0 is Deadly and gets 0% reproduction
0.3 is Harsh, and gets 7%
0.5 is unpleasant and gets 10%
1.0 is mild and gets 12%
1.3 is good and gets 14%
1.5 is optimal and gets 17%

The planets stayed Happy after a number of turns.

The second test had a race with 120 Environmental Resistance trait:

0.0 is Deadly and gets 0% reproduction
0.3 is Harsh, and gets 11%
0.5 is unpleasant and gets 14%
1.0 is mild and gets 16%
1.3 is good and gets 18%
1.5 is optimal and gets 21%

All planets became Jubilant after 1 extra turn.

Conclusion:
ER is linear in effect in regards to Reproduction Rate on all planets, regardless of conditions. Harsh planets are affected the same that Optimal and Mild planets are.

50 points gets 1% Repro and 1% happiness.
125 points gets 5% ER, which has the same effect as the above.
Therein lies the free points exploit associated with ER.

Proposed plan:
To eliminate the free points loop-hole, change ER to cost as much to lower by 5% as it costs to raise Repro and Happiness by 1%. Make ER cost 10 points per percent to lower. But, leave its cost to raise alone. It costs fewer points to raise ER to 105 (125 points) than it does to raise Repro from 110 to 111 (200 points), so ER can serve a good purpose when trying to get really high reproduction.

[ December 22, 2002, 23:38: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[PvK]

Thanks Fryon!

[spoon]

Just some ideas - not really tested...

Double point costs for research, construction, and minerals.
Increase Maint Reduction to 200 per point.
Halve point costs for ground combat.

Let repair range from 50% to 200% - cost maybe 5 points per point of repair, with no increase in cost. (so 200% repair would cost you 500 pts, dropping to 50 would save you 250 pts) (it could probably cost less than that, but 5 is such a nice even number...)

Suggest maxing Defensiveness at 110%, allow aggressiveness to go to 120%.

Eliminate Bezerker, or give it more penalties (less consruction seems good). Ditto with Merchant (suggest more ship combat penalties)

Good luck!